So, say we have a simple scenario in which a runner is being attacked by a force 7 spirit. He's in a room, separate from some other members of his team. They have a tacnet set up in the room runner A is in, allowing the other members of his team to sight in on his target using AR. Runners B C & D all begin shooting through the wall at the force 7 spirit. But the wall is actually 3 layers. Layer 1 of concrete. Layer 2 of rating 20 armor plates, and layer 3 of paper/magazine clippings of Katy Perry.

Runners B, C, and D are equal in every respect to their skills. Runner B has an assault rifle with SnS. Runner C has an SMG with APDS, and Runner D forgot his gun and is going to try to use distance strike.

I'm really terribly new at this whole GM thing and I really need you guy's expert advice.

GO!

You call that simple?

Nothing the team has can penetrate Rating 20 Armor, so basically, none of the attacks get through. See page 166 of SR4.5 for details. Unless they somehow get a modified power over 20, they won't penetrate that layer.

Wouldn't the Katy Perry magazine clippings create a Rating: 8 background count which would disrupt the spirit, anyways?

They're all throwing dice pools of 25+, and using edge.

This sounds like a Katy Perry houserule to me. I have a list of about 20 Katy Perry houserules, but this is not one of them. I challenge your houserule, Sir! Totally imbalancationing!

Okay, let's do the math....

Assuming no other penalties, they're still at -6 for Blind Fire. SnS has a base damage of 6S, no AP. To break the concrete alone, he needs to have 10 successes (Concrete has an Amror Value of 16, p166, SR4.5) to even penetrate to the next layer. With a dice pool of 25, +3 Edge, -6 Blind Fire. So, 22 dice-- respectable, but even with exploding 6's, it's not probable. You're going to average about 8 successes, not enough.

Now, let's try with the SMG. That does a base of 5P, AP:4. Assuming the same stats, he has to beat an armor rating of 12. Which he will do: 5 + 8 = 13. Now, he hits the next layer-- but this time, the next barrier's armor rating has been increased by an amount equal to the original. That means he has to beat an armor of 32, before modifiers for AP. The attack spangs off the internal armor, wasted.

Basically, it's not going to happen.

Oh dear. Didn't we just have this discussion in another thread?
Yes, yes we did. Its over in the 'dissallowed in your game' one.

Hold on, cain. The runner's dont get the blind fire penalty - they can see exactly where it is via the Tacnet. They will, however, take the -2 for firing from Good cover, and the defender -certainly- gets the good cover bonus of +4 on its defense roll if any of the attacks get through.

That shift in dice pools, plus edge, -might-, might, might let one of the runners get enough hits.

The short version is.... a runner's base damage + net hits has to be greater (not = to or greater) than a barrier's armor-AP to get through. The only person who's going to have a chance is the Adept with distance strike, but only if he has Smashing Blow(or is it shattering blow?).

The AR/SNS guy isn't going to have a chance. The AP just isn't there. The SMG/APDS guy might. He's doing 5p @ ap-4, so he'll need to beat 16 armor for that one layer, which means he needs 12 hits on the barrier to stand a chance.
The good news is, he gets two attempts, due to burst fire.
Might have a chance due to narrow burst. (the good news is, the shooting through barrier rules let you use a weapon's modified damage value, which means narrow bursts)

Just saying, though, your AR w/ SNS player wants to shoot Stick and shocks through a wall?

edit: Oop, kain's more on top of it than I am.

19 dice, Edge used for reroll. 31% chance of 10+ hits. Not that it helps

hmmm, I think you number crunchers may have missed something critically important.

Why not make the point you're trying to make and be done with it?

Thought. Does Distance Strike need to penetrate the barrier to affect the Spirit?

I dont think it's adressed but RAW implies that you manifest the blow with out it passing though the space in-between so maybe.

The penalty even with TacNet information is still -4 (Arsenal, p161).

Ok. There's multiple points i'm trying to make.
1. Glyph got the main point. It's a joke.

2. This single scenario brings up several controversial subjects here on dumpshock. The controversy of these subjects is a source of humor to me. You guys would argue about this crap all day. For some of these subjects, there's genuine reason for the conflict. The rules are ambigious, or they conflict so hard with the fluff that people want to change the rule. I can see the issue from both perspectives. If I were GMing a game, I know what position I would take in my game. If I were playing in someone elses game, I would let the GM make the decision and I wouldn't argue with them about it. You want tasers taking down high force spirits? Fine. I'm buying a taser.

3. As a GM, you should never put yourself in a situation where there's this much A. controversy and B. number Crunching. Sometimes players will surprise you with their decisions and you might end up in some pretty crunchy situations. You should probably look for creative ways out of it rather than spending the next half hour of the game crunching the numbers, only to have a Rules Lawyer get into an argument with you about SnS ammo and spirits and barriers, ruining your whole evening. In this particular case, I would make the spirit de-materialize, for example. If you don't want to be creative, hand wave the situation. Players that do clever things should be awarded in your hand-waving. If the Rules Lawyer argues with you, tell him you're hand waving it and there's nothing he can do about it except leave.

That's about it.

Hmm. It may surprise you to realize that this isn't a game session.

Wow, what a great joke.

On a side note they could always abuse the called shot and long shot rules. Bypass the wall and the spirit's ITNW for a massive - the use the loong shots rules to roll edge. Thats iffy/retarded as I'm not 100% one can bypass walls.

Laodicea, it seems you might have missed something as well.



Emphasis mine.

Stop stirring the pot, please. Thanks.

This wasn't baiting. But whatever. You're the admin. You'll define it however you want. I'm just saying you're wrong.

You're trying to pick a fight.

What else do you call baiting?

Assuming wwe're not discussing fishing.



-karma

I'm disturbed that moderation would take issue with a member poking a bit of fun at the propensity of frequent posters on this board to treat all rules discussions with stiff-necked severity. I think Laodicea's satirical jab was well-targeted. If Dumpshock can't handle this sort of joke without warnings being issued for 'baiting', I fear for the community.

I am? Is that listed as a reason I made this post? I think I only listed 3 reasons. Weird that you found a 4th.

Picking a fight? After all the flaming in the CGL speculation threads you call that picking a fight? FFS people, can't you handle someone having a bit of a chuckle at your expense?

Edit: And by "your expense" I include myself, as I'm as prone to arguing rules interpretations as anyone else on this board.

Regardless, rules discussions are specifically for this. We know that GM-fiat solves everything. The point is to limit the need for that by having a system of rules that works.

That's great. I'm not taking issue with anything but that a moderator, and one other poster, decided that Laodicea was 'baiting' and 'picking a fight' when all that was happening was that he/she was poking a bit of fun at the stereotypical rules discussion on DS.

It's wasn't a terribly *nice* 'poking a bit of fun'. It was condescending and dismissive. So, I wouldn't say there's much high ground there. A mild reminder from the mod doesn't hurt, although I'm surprised it inspired all this extra discussion.

"Poking fun" tends to not be so deadly serious in tone that it's downright mean-spirited.




-karma

"and layer 3 of paper/magazine clippings of Katy Perry." You're right. That's deadly serious.

"Deadly serious" and "mean-spirited?" Amazing how you can infer so much emotional content and intent from text alone. I read the same post as you did and I saw a slightly condescending attempt at satire while pushing a (hardly new) point of view that some rules disputes are counter-productive and can scare away that wily critter we call "fun." I looked at this topic, had a small internal chuckle, and would never have returned if there hadn't been a, imo, totally unjustified moderator warning. Maybe I'm just bored at work today, but this seems to me a case of heavy-handed moderation.

Why is a brief warning such a cause for alarm? If people hadn't reacted to *that*, there'd be no problem here, either.

It's not the intent that matters so much as the effect Eidolon is concerned with. If the OP is intended to be a spoof, it needs to be very clear, otherwise the mods are going to have to do work.

Given the immediate response and subsequent goading it's apparent not everyone read the initial post in the same way.

I'm glad you put a at the end of your sentence. We need more emoticons. Perhaps my problem is that I didn't sprinkle enough emoticons in my posts to show that I am not, in fact, alarmed but rather bored at work after lunch and chose this topic as my pet cause for the afternoon.

That's fair except that the spoof doesn't work unless the spoofer can take in a few people before making the "reveal." Was it a bit mean-spirited? Yes, in the way that all such humor is. I'm just mystified by why this is a bad thing; why a few ever-so-slightly contused internet feelings is worth a moderator warning.

Personally, I appreciated the moderator warning because the 'joke' sucked.

I read it over and saw it as a situation that requested clarification of the mechanics. The Katy Perry layer was discarded as irrelevant, as Katy Perry should be.

The moderator warning, nuclear weapon of internet threads.

I made my point, which is that we should all be able to laugh at ourselves, even if we feel the joke was a bit forced. A good day to you all.

Guys, no "warnings" were issued. In the OP's own words, he was specifically creating a thread, duplicating a conversation that was apparently already taking place, that contained "controversial" subject matter, and that he/she (sorry, don't know you from the proverbial Adam, I've been away) knew that people would argue about it ad nauseam.

If you meant it more on the joke side and less on the "start pointless arguments for your own amusement" side, then okey dokey smokey.

I'm not sure I could have made it more obviously a spoof without saying "***SPOOF ALERT***" in the sub-title. Several people got it. Glyph obviously got it right away. Sorry the rest of you took logic as your dump stat.

I'm not sure, but I think he just called us stupid (again). I'm sure it was just a joke though.

Laodicea,
As you have just called all the people posting on this thread who disagree with you mentally challenged by saying that logic is their dump stat... Not sure you do need to be here. If I wanted to be exposed to pointless name calling and arguing I would just go back to my class room and listen to my high school students.
On the original post... The question is an interesting one, RAW I think you are stuck in the room with the spirit. Barring incredible luck, now is the time for demolitions to save your friend.

Hes not saying yer stupid. Hes saying you don't have common sense. But that in itself is a bit uncalled for.

Wait, Logic isn't common sense.

Logically speaking?

No, everyone knows that.

This entire thread is uncalled for and is rapidly turning into a fine example of why eidolon was leery of it to begin with.

Laodicea: if your intent was to make a joke which some people view as baiting you're not doing yourself any favors by following it up with actual baiting.

jakephillips: please don't tell anyone they aren't supposed to be here.

You guys are probably right. I've made a huge mistake by posting a couple jokes here. I forgot that this is the same forum that couldn't take a joke by Stephen Colbert.

Whether your original joke was baiting or not is debatable, and irrelevant. I am commenting on your followup statement about everyone "taking logic as [their] dump stat", which seems to me a clear case of baiting and is already generating reports to the moderators.

Get the chip of your shoulder. If your actions generate more work for us and detract from our ability to enjoy our time around here, don't be surprised when the moderators fail to appreciate the humor in your "jokes".

You posted some jokes?
Where?